Bakersfield Pest Control Exterminator News

Fall Garden Clean Up and Pests

Native bees (a.k.a. solitary bees) sleeping on California Buckwheat

We regularly read horticultural advice advocating raking up and removing leaf litter and debris from Bakersfield gardens in order to "clean" them up. Removing the brown seed pods, dried grasses, fallen twigs, coastal live oak leaf litter and other signs of abundant summer growth feels intuitively right. After all, this is how we clean our homes. But does this practice really "clean up" garden pest problems?

Garden Beneficials Need Winter Habitat

Turns out that the very same leaf litter and dried stalks that we fear give harbor to some of our garden nemeses also provide shelter and habitat during colder months to the native pollinators and beneficial insects that keep our Bakersfield gardens thriving and in balance during the summer. Pollinators boost the health of our plants and predatory beneficial insects feed on our garden foes -- they may even be encouraged to stay in our gardens because they have a decent food supply!

Keeping shelter in place for the following Bakersfield garden "good citizens" seems like something we'd all be interested in:

Native Bees and other Pollinators

Butterflies

Native Ladybug Species

Insectivorous Birds

Predatory Insects

We really like this article that advocates delaying garden clean up until the spring months (with some exceptions, of course):